An interview on IncGamers talks with David Brevik of Gazillion Entertainment about Diablo III, getting the co-founder of Blizzard North's impressions of the latest version of the series he helped originate. He offers a perspective on how the game was impacted by the loss of the company's action/RPG knowledgebase with the closure of Blizzard North and how the third game in the series more reflects the tastes and experiences of Blizzard South, and verges on schadenfreude in describing part of his mixed feelings about how it ultimately turned out: "I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was and how unique and special that group was. I am hoping that, as this happens very often in the industry, you see it with Call of Duty and things like that, when the people leave the game changes and it shows how critical people are in this industry."

Beamer wrote on Aug 19, 2012, 16:58:Of course, most of that knowledge and most of that people went on to create Hellgate: London.

No, Roper is mostly to blame for that. Also his insistence on making 50% of the game essentially an FPS. He had too many ideas and wanted to please too many gamer types than reality would allow.

Plus Hellgate was a gigantic clusterfuck. It was released far too soon, never fully bug tested (even months after launch) and the different tiers of paying/non-paying players created a lot of ill will towards the designers from gamers. It was just a mistake all around.